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shaun_au

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 31, 2002
3
0
Hi,

I bought a Powerbook Titanium 667Mhz about 3 months ago. It's the gigabyte eithernet model with 512mb of ram and a 30GB HD. I noticed it's very slow when switching between multiple apps like Photoshop, Freehand and Flash(I'm a web designer). Even the IE is very slow(I know IE mac version sucks). So I got a copy of Navigator, but it doesn't appear to be running any faster than the IE. I use Jaguar by the way. A friend of mine told me to partition my HD so it would make the machine run faster. So now I have 4 disks, 3GB for the Jaguar, 1GB for OS9, 10GB for apps and the rest goes to my work stuff. The performance is still not up to my Pentium 3 733 dual processor PC!

People been telling me to get more ram(1 GB or a faster machine(1GHZ model). I only had this thing for about 3 months and I spent $2500 on it. Frankly, I haven't put this thing to much of use as I had hoped for, and people are talking about upgrading already. I'm not justified.

I decided to go with a Mac when I was choosing between a Toshiba laptop and a PB. I've heard a lot of great things about PB and OSX. The "Switch" thing, you know. However, I'm disappointed with this PB so far.
 

Chaszmyr

macrumors 601
Aug 9, 2002
4,267
86
I am sorry that you are disapointed, but I am not sure what youre talking about. I had a 733mhz G4 machine which was almost as fast as my dual 1.53ghz athlon MP when running Photoshop
 

Megaquad

macrumors 6502a
Jul 12, 2001
817
1
Could you please download this application:
http://www.xbench.com/Xbench_1.0b3.dmg.gz (only 150 KB).
It will run few tests which will measure performance of your computer.
Please do tests while having no other applications running, DONT move with your pointer or do anything while doing them and post results here.

Other 667 MHz Powerbook owners please post results too so we can compare.
If yours got slower scores then others then there might be something wrong with it.

There might be other posibility - your Powerbook is a revision A, old 667 MHz model which is a lot slower then revision B.
What is your maximum/native resolution of screen 1182*768 (or simmilar) or 1280x864?
 

shaun_au

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 31, 2002
3
0
Originally posted by Megaquad
Could you please download this application:
http://www.xbench.com/Xbench_1.0b3.dmg.gz (only 150 KB).
It will run few tests which will measure performance of your computer.
Please do tests while having no other applications running, DONT move with your pointer or do anything while doing them and post results here.

Other 667 MHz Powerbook owners please post results too so we can compare.
If yours got slower scores then others then there might be something wrong with it.

There might be other posibility - your Powerbook is a revision A, old 667 MHz model which is a lot slower then revision B.
What is your maximum/native resolution of screen 1182*768 (or simmilar) or 1280x864?

I think mine is Revision A with a 1182x768 screen.

here is the Xbench result.

Results 60.88
System Info
Xbench Version 1.0b2
System Version 10.2.2
Physical RAM 512 MB
Processor PowerPC,G4@0 [667 MHz]
CPU Test 70.93
GCD Recursion 65.47 2.56 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 64.04 55.41 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 86.68 447.40 Mflop/sec
Floating Point Library 67.52 3.03 Mops/sec
Thread Test 45.46
Computation 39.09 314.94 Kops/sec, 4 threads
Memory Contention 56.95 180.14 MB/sec, 2 threads
Lock Contention 40.34 506.38 Klocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 66.25
System 49.26
Allocate 76.88 40.44 Kalloc/sec
Fill 29.32 168.14 MB/sec
Copy 41.58 249.46 MB/sec
Stream 83.24
Copy 84.50 337.98 MB/sec [altivec]
Scale 76.75 307.02 MB/sec [altivec]
Add 86.76 347.05 MB/sec [altivec]
Triad 84.96 339.84 MB/sec [altivec]
Quartz Graphics Test 59.19
Line 64.58 1.64 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 60.76 4.27 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 65.03 1.50 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 60.30 655.23 beziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 45.28 762.53 chars/sec
User Interface Test 50.90
Elements 50.90 16.29 refresh/sec
Disk Test 43.10
Sequential 41.94
Uncached Sequential Write 40.85 18.10 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Sequential Read 43.03 18.59 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 44.27
Uncached Random Write 40.70 9.57 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Random Read 47.85 9.62 MB/sec [256K blocks]
 

alex_ant

macrumors 68020
Feb 5, 2002
2,473
0
All up in your bidness
Rev A: 400 & 500MHz, 1152x768
Rev B: 550 & 667MHz, 1152x768
Rev C: 667 & 800MHz, 1280x854
Rev D: 867 & 1000MHz, 1280x854

shaun_au: Your Ti is a rev B. I have a 550MHz rev B and I don't know what to tell you. I guess speed is a subjective thing since you and I think our computers are slow and others don't. If your computer seems slow now, that's just how it is.
 

Choppaface

macrumors 65816
Jan 22, 2002
1,187
0
SFBA
try running it in OS9

photoshop should be a lot more responsive

though flash might act a little buggy here and there, dunno about freehand but for illustrator in X and in OS9 there's not much of a difference

my dual 1900+ XP is tremendously faster than my dual 500 G4 in 10.2, though if I boot into 9.2.2 PS7 is about as responsive as the pc, though filter render times and levels/curves previews are a bit longer of course

more RAM might help a little, especially for photoshop. PS generally likes its own half gig or so :D
 

Megaquad

macrumors 6502a
Jul 12, 2001
817
1
Originally posted by shaun_au


I think mine is Revision A with a 1182x768 screen.

here is the Xbench result.

You gaved 2500$ for rev. A Powerbook?
If you checked a bit benchmarks you would see that model u have is 20-100% slower then rev B. 550/667 are worst powerbook line ever.
In processor intensive stuff you wont notice it, but interface and graphics they are terribly slow.

P.S. when i say rev.a i mean rev. a of 667 mhz version.
 

trive

macrumors member
Jul 24, 2002
40
0
try this....

do you know other people with a mac?

if you want to compare speed between macs that's a really good way:

- go in Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > Terminal
- open Terminal
- wait a few seconds
- make sure no other apps are running
- write "openssl speed" (with no "" 's)
- print what you got (it may take you a bit to get all the results)
- compare the results with the others obtained from other macs.

that's nice.

good luck.
 

zoetropeuk

macrumors regular
Dec 19, 2002
235
0
Oxford UK
Mysterious ????

You shouldn't partition your drive for use with OSX. This was definitely a benefit with OS9 but your performace WILL SUFFER if you use Jaguar in this way. Separating the system from the apps is bad news.
If I was you I'd reformat the drive and start from scratch. I have both a 12.1" 500mhz iBook and a Dual 867 G4. The speed difference between the two is obvious but I wouldn't call the iBook slow. Therefore your PB should scream along. For the kind of work you do upgrading to a faster hard drive will definitely make things faster.
Upgrading to 10.2.3 will help as well. You should also make sure that you have the latest updates for the apps you're using. The difference between Dreamweaver 6 and 6.1 is staggering. I gave up using 6.0 because it was the slowest app ever released for OSX but 6.1 flies !!!!!
 

agreenster

macrumors 68000
Dec 6, 2001
1,896
11
My 550 Ti

Is ungodly slow. Certainly the worst of all Powerbooks. My friends 400mHz is faster, and even has a 8meg vid card compared to my 16mB. Jag is SLOOOOOW on the 550.

Looking to get the 1gig model. Is that one considerably faster? I would assume so, but I also assumed that the 550 would be faster than the 400.

??
 

Megaquad

macrumors 6502a
Jul 12, 2001
817
1
When you are using jaguar, and running apps from partition different then your boot disk you will suffer heavy slowdowns in app speed launch.
 

shaun_au

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 31, 2002
3
0
Originally posted by Megaquad


You gaved 2500$ for rev. A Powerbook?
If you checked a bit benchmarks you would see that model u have is 20-100% slower then rev B. 550/667 are worst powerbook line ever.
In processor intensive stuff you wont notice it, but interface and graphics they are terribly slow.

P.S. when i say rev.a i mean rev. a of 667 mhz version.


Originally posted by alex_ant
Rev A: 400 & 500MHz, 1152x768
Rev B: 550 & 667MHz, 1152x768
Rev C: 667 & 800MHz, 1280x854
Rev D: 867 & 1000MHz, 1280x854

shaun_au: Your Ti is a rev B. I have a 550MHz rev B and I don't know what to tell you. I guess speed is a subjective thing since you and I think our computers are slow and others don't. If your computer seems slow now, that's just how it is.

Megaquad,

Alex_ant is saying I've got a rev B. You're saying mine is a rev A. So who's correct? I'm confused.
 

agreenster

macrumors 68000
Dec 6, 2001
1,896
11
You have a Rev B, like mine. (550) I remember hearing the reasoning behind the slowness of RevB--something to do with FSB? Cache?

Cant remember. All I know is it was changed from rev A to Rev B and made the speed of the machine slower.
 

cubist

macrumors 68020
Jul 4, 2002
2,075
0
Muncie, Indiana
I have a rev A 500...

... my xbench was 57.25 under 10.2.2 (haven't run it after the 10.2.3 update yet). I think (a) xbench is a pretty good benchmark for general application performance, and (b) your score of 60.88 is not too bad, altho with 33% more CPU I'd have expected a score in the 70s.

Sure it'll fly like a rocket in Mac OS 9, but who wants to go there?
 

Thirteenva

macrumors 6502a
Jul 18, 2002
679
0
Here's my xbench results, i have a rev A. tibook 500mhz with 512mb and 5400 rpm 40gb IBM HD. I'm running 10.2.3 and using xbench 1.0b3. I did a permission repair right before running xbench. I did NOT do this on a fresh restart the machine has been running for days without a restart.

PHP:
Results	65.32	
	System Info		
		Xbench Version		1.0b3
		System Version		10.2.3
		Physical RAM		512 MB
		Processor		PowerPC,G4@0 [500 MHz]
			L1 Cache		32K (instruction), 32K (data)
			Bus Frequency		100 MHz
	CPU Test	58.56	
		GCD Recursion	50.11	1.96 Mops/sec
		Floating Point Basic	63.70	214.69 Mflop/sec
		AltiVec Basic	29.81	1.62 Gflop/sec
		Floating Point Library	90.61	4.07 Mops/sec
	Thread Test	54.08	
		Computation	33.00	265.85 Kops/sec, 4 threads
		Memory Contention	81.30	257.15 MB/sec, 2 threads
		Lock Contention	47.95	601.86 Klocks/sec, 4 threads
	Memory Test	78.81	
		System	74.71	
			Allocate	93.19	49.02 Kalloc/sec
			Fill	95.30	546.52 MB/sec
			Copy	35.64	213.84 MB/sec
		Stream	82.91	
			Copy	81.06	324.25 MB/sec [altivec]
			Scale	80.20	320.81 MB/sec [altivec]
			Add	85.93	343.73 MB/sec [altivec]
			Triad	84.42	337.69 MB/sec [altivec]
	Quartz Graphics Test	62.95	
		Line	58.86	1.50 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
		Rectangle	60.99	4.29 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
		Circle	70.38	1.62 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
		Bezier	68.97	749.43 beziers/sec [50% alpha]
		Text	55.54	935.32 chars/sec
	OpenGL Graphics Test	73.53	
		Spinning Squares	73.53	51.45 frames/sec
	User Interface Test	63.00	
		Elements	63.00	20.16 refresh/sec
	Disk Test	66.33	
		Sequential	74.45	
			Uncached Write	66.19	24.64 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	63.16	22.12 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	104.38	15.43 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	64.07	24.03 MB/sec [256K blocks]
		Random	58.21	
			Uncached Write	45.10	0.75 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Write	65.96	13.71 MB/sec [256K blocks]
			Uncached Read	53.80	0.58 MB/sec [4K blocks]
			Uncached Read	67.98	13.08 MB/sec [256K blocks]
 

Thirteenva

macrumors 6502a
Jul 18, 2002
679
0
i would reformat the hard drive. Make two paritions. One for the OS (or os's plural) and one for all your work and documens etc...

I have one partition about 10gb for OSX, Classic and my apps. And i have another partition about 30gb with all my files and work on it. This has worked quite good for me. See my xbench score in my post right above this one.
 

rjrufo

macrumors regular
Sep 18, 2002
207
1
Boston
Xbench Results

Here are the results for my PowerBook, a 400MHz revision a with 384 MB of RAM. I'm not that impressed with the results, but it's fast enough for me.

Results 52.75
System Info
Xbench Version 1.0b3
System Version 10.2.3
Physical RAM 384 MB
Processor PowerPC,G4@0 [400 MHz]
L1 Cache 32K (instruction), 32K (data)
Bus Frequency 100 MHz
CPU Test 46.20
GCD Recursion 40.37 1.58 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 49.88 168.11 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 22.76 1.23 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 71.80 3.22 Mops/sec
Thread Test 39.03
Computation 25.95 209.08 Kops/sec, 4 threads
Memory Contention 53.36 168.77 MB/sec, 2 threads
Lock Contention 37.80 474.42 Klocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 69.62
System 65.58
Allocate 74.96 39.43 Kalloc/sec
Fill 94.04 539.28 MB/sec
Copy 27.73 166.40 MB/sec
Stream 73.66
Copy 71.23 284.94 MB/sec [altivec]
Scale 71.18 284.70 MB/sec [altivec]
Add 76.64 306.55 MB/sec [altivec]
Triad 75.59 302.36 MB/sec [altivec]
Quartz Graphics Test 55.21
Line 50.91 1.30 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 56.99 4.01 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 61.79 1.42 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 58.63 637.02 beziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 47.75 804.08 chars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 65.88
Spinning Squares 65.88 46.10 frames/sec
User Interface Test 53.09
Elements 53.09 16.99 refresh/sec
Disk Test 40.20
Sequential 44.88
Uncached Write 38.62 14.38 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 40.71 14.26 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 61.41 9.08 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 38.76 14.53 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 35.52
Uncached Write 23.02 0.38 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 39.88 8.29 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 34.10 0.37 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 45.06 8.67 MB/sec [256K blocks]
 

goobus

macrumors newbie
Jul 17, 2002
11
0
Here are the results of my PB 867

Results 90.37
System Info
Xbench Version 1.0b3
System Version 10.2.3
Physical RAM 768 MB
Processor PowerPC,G4@0 [867 MHz]
L1 Cache 32K (instruction), 32K (data)
Bus Frequency 134 MHz
CPU Test 100.48
GCD Recursion 99.70 3.89 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 102.08 344.06 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 97.28 5.28 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 102.86 4.62 Mops/sec
Thread Test 65.54
Computation 55.39 446.22 Kops/sec, 4 threads
Memory Contention 81.72 258.49 MB/sec, 2 threads
Lock Contention 59.52 747.14 Klocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 110.08
System 118.95
Allocate 106.56 56.05 Kalloc/sec
Fill 198.76 1139.76 MB/sec
Copy 51.53 309.15 MB/sec
Stream 101.22
Copy 100.66 402.65 MB/sec [altivec]
Scale 101.71 406.85 MB/sec [altivec]
Add 103.14 412.56 MB/sec [altivec]
Triad 99.37 397.49 MB/sec [altivec]
Quartz Graphics Test 96.74
Line 85.47 2.18 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 109.94 7.73 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 107.55 2.48 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 75.71 822.62 beziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 105.04 1.77 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 89.08
Spinning Squares 89.08 62.34 frames/sec
User Interface Test 101.47
Elements 101.47 32.47 refresh/sec
Disk Test 69.21
Sequential 85.38
Uncached Write 61.27 22.81 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 65.50 22.94 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 152.74 22.58 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 62.00 23.25 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 53.03
Uncached Write 67.42 1.13 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 52.52 10.92 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 41.07 0.44 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 51.13 9.84 MB/sec [256K blocks]
 

sparkleytone

macrumors 68020
Oct 28, 2001
2,307
0
Greensboro, NC
any time you run the applications from a different partitition you are asking for slower performance. ESPECIALLY with things like photoshop. Anything that is going to require huge amounts of cached data needs to be on the primary hard drive.

have you ever copied large files across partitions on the same hard drive? it is ridiculously slow compared to copying to the same partition or to a different hard drive. repartition and reformat.
 

agreenster

macrumors 68000
Dec 6, 2001
1,896
11
550 xbench results

YIKES
Results 55.18
System Info
Xbench Version 1.0b3
System Version 10.2
Physical RAM 1024 MB
Processor PowerPC,G4@0 [550 MHz]
L1 Cache 32K (instruction), 32K (data)
Bus Frequency 100 MHz
CPU Test 60.89
GCD Recursion 54.60 2.13 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 64.08 215.99 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 60.11 3.26 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 64.77 2.91 Mops/sec
Thread Test 44.15
Computation 34.28 276.15 Kops/sec, 4 threads
Memory Contention 62.20 196.74 MB/sec, 2 threads
Lock Contention 35.96 451.44 Klocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 58.46
System 42.18
Allocate 67.37 35.44 Kalloc/sec
Fill 23.59 135.28 MB/sec
Copy 35.58 213.49 MB/sec
Stream 74.75
Copy 73.35 293.42 MB/sec [altivec]
Scale 74.38 297.51 MB/sec [altivec]
Add 75.95 303.80 MB/sec [altivec]
Triad 75.31 301.24 MB/sec [altivec]
Quartz Graphics Test 55.34
Line 57.88 1.47 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 59.28 4.17 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 53.56 1.23 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 56.63 615.39 beziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 49.35 831.07 chars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 78.97
Spinning Squares 78.97 55.26 frames/sec
User Interface Test 46.69
Elements 46.69 14.94 refresh/sec
Disk Test 41.78
Sequential 49.22
Uncached Write 40.46 15.06 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 39.14 13.71 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 80.04 11.83 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 37.25 13.97 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 34.34
Uncached Write 20.58 0.34 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 37.38 7.77 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 36.75 0.40 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 42.66 8.21 MB/sec [256K blocks]
 
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